


Let’s Celebrate

by things_that_matter



Series: CMBYN: Life with Ollie [7]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Discipline, Domestic Fluff, Family Feels, Family Fluff, M/M, Punishment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:16:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28799712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/things_that_matter/pseuds/things_that_matter
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman
Series: CMBYN: Life with Ollie [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2094873
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	Let’s Celebrate

Oliver heard the high-pitched sound that he’d come to associate with Ollie’s bus arriving. He walked over to look out the window. Ollie had been _off_ for several days now. The kid should have been happy, Oliver thought. It was May, so the weather was beautiful. The days were growing longer, which meant he could play outside more. And, school would be out in a few weeks. So Oliver couldn’t understand why Ollie seemed so melancholy. He had asked Elio if Ollie seemed sad to him, but Elio hadn’t noticed anything.  
But still... Oliver had been observing him. He was becoming withdrawn. The last few days when his friend from next door came in hopes that Ollie could come out and play, Ollie hadn’t wanted to go out. Ollie didn’t want to play chess with him. He hadn’t wanted to play video games with Elio in nearly a week. Oliver had pressed Elio until he finally called his teacher, but she hadn’t noticed anything unusual. Oliver seemed to be the only one who thought there was a problem, but as he watched Ollie climb off the bus without smiling and waving to the bus driver like he used to do, Oliver felt certain something was wrong. Then Ollie walked slowly up the sidewalk, ignoring his friends as they called to him, and Oliver knew he was correct. Something was definitely wrong. 

After prompting Ollie to pick up his things from where he had dropped them on the floor by the door, he tried yet again to talk to him. 

“Are you hungry? Do you want a snack?” he asked.

Ollie shook his head. 

“Do you want to help me outside? I was going to plant some tomatoes,” Oliver suggested next. 

Ollie shook his head. 

“Do you want to play chess then?” he tried. 

Ollie looked up at him, suddenly inexplicably angry. “Leave me alone!” he shouted. 

Oliver was taken aback. Ollie sometimes acted like this toward his brother, and he tolerated a little bit of brotherly behavior because they were, after all, brothers. But Ollie had never lashed out at him in this manner. 

“Then you can go to your room and do your homework,” he said firmly. 

Ollie maintained eye contact with him, and for a moment Oliver thought he might escalate his behavior. Oliver started preparing for how he would react in that event. But in the end, Ollie just gave him a long, sad look and softly replied, “Okay,” as he turned and walked to his room. 

Oliver stood, shaking his head in disbelief as he watched him disappear down the hallway. He decided not to go outside to plant tomatoes. He needed to be close. Instead, he started thinking about dinner. 

An hour later, Ollie had not reappeared from his room. He never had this much homework, so Oliver went in to check on him. 

He found Ollie had fallen asleep on his bed, so he walked over to look at his homework. If it was complete, he thought he would let him sleep a while. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the familiar homework folder. As he was looking over his homework, which was complete, it registered with him that he’d felt some other loose papers in his folder. This wasn’t unusual. They often had to prompt him to clean out his backpack. But when he pulled these papers out, his heart skipped a beat at what he saw. It was a Mother’s Day project that he had apparently completed at school. It occurred to Oliver all at once what May must feel like to Ollie. He’d had to make a coupon book for his mom about all the nice things he would do for her, and then he’d written an acrostic poem that seemed so popular with teachers. Oliver looked at the poem and each coupon, then at the sleeping little boy, and his heart melted. He wished Elio wasn’t going to be so late tonight. 

But as it stood, he was on his own tonight. He let Ollie sleep for a while, but eventually he sat on the edge of his bed and reached over to pat Ollie’s back. It was odd to him, but he could sense the moment that the boy shifted into consciousness, even though he gave no outward indication. 

“Ollie?” he gently spoke. “You need to wake up. Dinner’s ready.”

Ollie opened his eyes and yawned. 

“You hungry?” Oliver asked. 

“No,” Ollie finally responded. 

Oliver smiled. “Well, you need to come eat anyway.” 

Ollie didn’t move for a moment, but then he sat up with a fluidity only possible for the very young. He looked at Oliver with a sincere look on his face. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he said in a voice so quiet that Oliver could barely hear him. 

“I know,” Oliver nodded. “It’s okay.”

“I finished my homework,” the boy said, reaching for his backpack. He knew Oliver would want to check it, but Oliver shook his head gently. 

“I know. I checked it while you were asleep,” he explained. Then after a pause, “I saw your Mother’s Day project.” 

Ollie looked away, almost as if embarrassed. He began playing with the zipper on his backpack. “I had to. It was for a grade.” 

Oliver bristled at this, but tried not to make it evident. “Did you talk to your teacher?” he asked. 

“Yeah. She said I could do something for my dad instead, but...” Ollie took a deep breath. “Then I got upset because Father’s Day is next month and I can’t celebrate that either. All the days to celebrate special people, I can’t celebrate. I don’t have any special people.” 

Ollie swiped at his eyes. He didn’t want cry. 

“Well...” Oliver said, but then stopped. He was going to tell Ollie that he had Elio. And him. But suddenly he wasn’t sure if that would show a lack of understanding for the trauma of not having his parents with him. So, the silence stretched between them. Then, it was if he had spoken anyway, because Ollie responded, “There’s no such thing as Brother’s Day.” 

Oliver pulled Ollie onto his lap and hugged him. “There is if we say there is,” he announced with authority. 

Ollie’s face showed happiness, but it also reflected a hesitation to reveal that happiness. “Really?” he asked. 

Oliver nodded. “Absolutely,” he affirmed. “Those holidays are just made up anyway. We can always celebrate the people we love.” 

So Oliver and Ollie went to work. Oliver grabbed all the materials he could find in the house, and Ollie made a card that said “Happy Brother’s Day” on the front. He painstakingly wrote a letter inside, too. Oliver patiently answered what felt like one hundred “how do you spell” questions as Ollie worked. Oliver showed Ollie how to use construction paper to make pop ups for the card, which Ollie thought was awesome. He even let Ollie make a little coin dish out of clay. Ollie was very private about what he was making for Elio, though. He wouldn’t let Oliver see it. He tried not to let it hurt his feelings though. He was just happy to see Ollie smile for the first time in much too long. In the end, he let Ollie stay up way past his bedtime to finish it. That’s something Elio would do, but he never did. This one time though, he thought something was more important than their routines. 

Before he went to bed, Ollie laid out the card, the coin dish, and some Oreos for Elio. Elio finally made it home just as Ollie was finishing the surprise. “HAPPY BROTHER’S DAY!!” Ollie shouted excitedly. Elio was, of course, confused, but he knew that he should go along with it and that Oliver could explain later. He picked up Ollie and hugged him, wiping a bit of chocolate from his mouth where he’d apparently snuck an Oreo for himself. 

“Thank you, Ollie,” he said, carrying him over to look at his gifts. He was genuinely touched when he read the sincere words his little brother had printed inside the card. 

Finally, Oliver said, “It’s getting really late. You need to go on to bed, Ollie.”

Ollie nodded and hugged them both goodnight, but before he left the room, he pulled out another card. Suddenly it made sense to Oliver why he had been so secretive while he was working. 

“You said we can always celebrate the people we love, and I love you, too! Happy Oliver Day!” And just like that, Ollie was gone, leaving Elio and Oliver both reading their sweet cards and eating Oreos. 

When they finally got to bed, very late for them, Elio snuggled into Oliver, then kissed him gently on the ear. “Thank you,” he whispered. 

Oliver turned his head so that he could kiss Elio softly on the mouth. “For what?” he asked. 

Elio thought about all the things he wanted to thank him for. For loving Ollie. For loving him. For not getting married. For everything. Elio didn’t know how to put into words all that he was thankful for. But Oliver understood. He kissed Elio, deeply, placed his hand on the side of Elio’s face, and then whispered, “I told Ollie that any day is a good day to celebrate people you love.”

They looked at one another for a long, long moment. Oliver lightly brushed Elio’s lip with his thumb, and this made Elio smile for some reason. 

“Then let’s celebrate,” Elio responded. 

And so they did. 


End file.
